MacArthur 'genius grant' award winners

Home Front Communications

The filmmaker explores the past, present and future of life in Mexico through documentaries that extend the boundaries of the genre. Combining historical footage, news clips and cinema verite sequences, she addresses social ills that long have roiled the country. Her film "El Velador" (2011) chronicles the impact of drug trafficking; her "El General" (2009) explores the legacy of her great-grandfather, Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles.

The filmmaker explores the past, present and future of life in Mexico through documentaries that extend the boundaries of the genre. Combining historical footage, news clips and cinema verite sequences, she addresses social ills that long have roiled the country. Her film "El Velador" (2011) chronicles the impact of drug trafficking; her "El General" (2009) explores the legacy of her great-grandfather, Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles. (Home Front Communications)

A photographer who experiments with the way we perceive light, Barth captures tones and half-tones of a sort that we typically overlook in day-to-day life. She often directs her camera at commonplace settings but focuses on the way light appears and fades away. In her series ¿¿and to draw a bright, white line with light¿ (2011), she positioned curtains to create unexpected streaks of light that seemed to move over time. In effect, Barth liberates photography from the strictures of the concrete objects, investigating the hues that play among them.

A photographer who experiments with the way we perceive light, Barth captures tones and half-tones of a sort that we typically overlook in day-to-day life. She often directs her camera at commonplace settings but focuses on the way light appears and fades away. In her series ¿¿and to draw a bright, white line with light¿ (2011), she positioned curtains to create unexpected streaks of light that seemed to move over time. In effect, Barth liberates photography from the strictures of the concrete objects, investigating the hues that play among them. (Home Front Communications)

A filmmaker who illuminates life in Mexico while reconceiving how documentaries are made. A flutist who built an organization that presents daring new music around the globe. A pediatric neurosurgeon who has saved the lives of uncounted children around the world by inventing an inexpensive, accessible way of treating hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain." These are among the winners of 2012 MacArthur Fellowships, or "genius grants," which carry a great deal of prestige -- plus $500,000 dispensed in installments over five years. With no strings attached. A certain degree of mystery hovers over the MacArthurs, since no one can apply for them. Instead, potential candidates are evaluated without knowing it, the process delivering a new class of recipients each year since 1981. The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation this year awards 23 individuals in the arts, sciences and humanities. Following is an annotated guide to this year's winners: -- Howard Reich